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In-state Virginia public college enrollment expected to decline slightly

2025 in-state student enrollment goals still attainable, policy research director says

<p>Virginia’s goal of becoming a better educated state seems possible, Massa said.</p>

Virginia’s goal of becoming a better educated state seems possible, Massa said.

Virginia’s public schools and universities are expecting minimal growth in enrollment in upcoming years, which may prevent the state from achieving higher-education goals established by the General Assembly.

According to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, four- and two-year public schools can expect a 5 percent increase in students by the 2021-22 school year. This may not be enough to reach the General Assembly’s target to award 100,000 additional undergraduate degrees to in-state students by 2025, the council says.

Tod Massa, SCHEV policy research and data warehousing director, said he is unconcerned by the low projection numbers and believes they are conservative.

“We have a strong system of higher education, and responsive institutions in place,” Massa said.

Both public and private higher-education schools are required by the state to submit individual enrollment estimates to receive funding. Public universities tend to submit conservative projections in their enrollment, however, because they are faced with financial repercussions if their numbers are off by 5 percentage points or more.

Specifically, public schools Christopher Newport University, Norfolk State, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise and Virginia Military Institute projected slight declines in enrollment by 2021-22.

In contrast, five other public schools — James Madison University, Longwood University, University of Mary Washington, Virginia Tech and Richard Bland College — have projected an increase in enrollment of 10 percent or greater.

Community college enrollment is the demographic which will most likely see a decline in total number, Massa said.

“They don’t control the numbers of students who come in so it’s very difficult to project what will happen from here, but as the economy recovers, community college enrollment does go down,” Massa said.

Still, Virginia’s overall goal of becoming a better educated state seems possible, Massa said.

“I think ultimately we have a good shot,” Massa said. “That does not mean we do not need to pay attention to the issue. We may need to add some more money to the system to do so, but I don’t think the goal is out of reach at all.”

The University has seen small increases in the numbers of in-state students enrolled in recent years. The number of enrolled in-state students in the first-year class increased from 2,193 in 2010 to 2,465 in 2015.

However, the percentage of in-state applicants who subsequently enrolled decreased slightly from 28 percent to around 27 percent between 2010 and 2015.

The 2015 fall census headcount enrollment projections have predicted 3675 first years for 2021-22, a 34 person decrease from the 2,014 projected headcount of 3,709 first years.

“When you split [the 100,000 additional students] around all the schools in the Commonwealth and the community colleges, we feel we are doing our share to accommodate deserving Virginians,” Dean of Admissions Gregory Roberts said.

With the steady increase in in-state students that accompanied the University’s recent growth, Warren does not envision the Office of Admissions making any sudden changes to recruitment efforts around the Commonwealth, which he said are already very active and well tailored to meet each school’s needs.


*Out of a class of 9156 applicants

Graphic by Nikita Meka


*Out of a pool of 7803 applicants

Graphic by Callie Phillips

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